randomness
part of speech
noun (randomness — uncountable)
meaning for a pupil
1) Randomness is the quality of happening by chance, with no pattern, plan or way to predict exactly what will happen. tree →
2) (informal) Randomness is being strange, odd or unexpected, as in «the randomness of his jokes». tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths lessons on probability, a fair dice or coin shows randomness: each result is equally likely, but you cannot say which comes next. In science, random samples make fair tests. In computing, randomness is used in games so they do not repeat. In everyday slang, «random» means odd or unexpected: «that was so random!». Common phrases: «pure randomness», «element of randomness», «true randomness», «the randomness of».
examples
- Rolling a dice shows randomness — you can't predict the next number. tree →
- There is an element of randomness in which cards you get. tree →
- Computers find true randomness surprisingly hard. tree →
- The randomness of the weather makes holidays tricky to plan. tree →
- The randomness of my little brother's questions makes me laugh. tree →
- Scientists add randomness when choosing a sample to keep it fair. tree →
- The game uses randomness so every level is different. tree →
note
Uncountable. Built from «random» + «-ness». Trap in maths: randomness does not mean results «even out» quickly — after five heads, the next coin toss is still 50/50 (the gambler's fallacy). Random does not mean equally likely in every case either.
In the corpora
- For stories and pretend games that randomness is fun.
- Bots add some randomness, so even the same bot can answer differently twice.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «randomness» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.